


Prison Break

by The_Asset6



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24946519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Asset6/pseuds/The_Asset6
Summary: Medication does not sanity make. Ian Gallagher knows this better than most people. Still, he’d sort of hoped to stave off the madness while he was in prison. So much for catching a break.
Relationships: Ian Gallagher & Lip Gallagher, Ian Gallagher & Mickey Milkovich, Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Comments: 32
Kudos: 173





	Prison Break

**Author's Note:**

> This work chronicles a depressive episode from Ian’s perspective. If this or any of the thoughts associated with it is triggering for you, please take all necessary precautions before proceeding and during reading or hit the back button. Stay safe.

“Delivery, Gallagher.”

Every day went exactly the same as the one before it.

The lights turned on at seven o’clock. The guards, freshly rotated, patrolled the cell block to verify that no one got shanked in the middle of the night. Ian rubbed his eyes and stretched, his toes just touching the opposite wall, then climbed out of his bunk to spend a few minutes in Mickey’s. They exchanged familiar affection that nevertheless felt sweet and new after so long without it. They took turns with the toilet and the toothpaste. Mickey gave him shit about the tits on his shoulder. Ian threw a dirty sock at him. They smiled. They laughed. They were happy together even in this place.

The door opened at eight o’clock. They filed out onto the elevated walkway for count. They accompanied the rest of the inmates to the cafeteria, where they ate a breakfast that made some of the shit Ian and Lip used to pull out of dumpsters for their family seem like gourmet fare. They returned to the cell block and, at eight-thirty sharp, a CO arrived with two paper cups, a flashlight, and a clipboard. Twelve hours later, it would happen again.

Ian dog-eared the page in his book and leapt down from his bunk. It had taken about a week for him to learn how to ignore Mickey’s renewed and seemingly intuitive habit of watching this part of his sentence play out, though goosebumps rose on his arms at the inevitable scrutiny regardless. Having Mickey here with him was the best thing that had happened in years, and he would never wish for anything else despite still feeling a bit guilty that he’d thrown away his freedom for Ian yet again. That didn’t always stop him from vaguely wondering if a different cellmate would make him a bit less embarrassed, a bit less _exposed_ at times like this. A different cellmate hadn’t encouraged him to take his meds when he’d been completely nuts or battled the side-effects while he’d undergone the painstaking process of adjusting to them, so they wouldn’t exactly have the same personal stake in the fact that he had been mandated by the state to take them religiously now as Mickey did.

If he ever wanted to be considered for parole, that was the deal: meds twice a day, every day. No arguments. No complaining. No games. Trying it would result in a little black check mark under the bad column on the clipboard, a trip to the shrink, and a note in his file. Ian had enough of those from before his incarceration to make him think twice about adding more. Pretty soon, the psychiatric folder labeled “Gallagher, Ian” would be too heavy to lift.

“Bottoms up,” said Officer Murphy dispassionately, just as accustomed to this song and dance as Ian.

“Thanks,” he muttered with a cup in each hand. In one were three pills he could identify in his sleep; in the other, slightly cloudy water. _Yeah. Bottoms up._

Washing the pills down, Ian grimaced at the temporary lump they formed in his throat, like they wanted to be there as much as he wanted to need them the way he did. There was no denying it anymore—he’d come too far and gone too crazy for that. Turning a blind eye to a manic bender was one thing. When you were partially— _mostly_ —responsible for starting and promoting a cult? You needed some serious help. It was amazing what you could come to terms with when you thought about it like that.

Ian’s acceptance that this was how he would live out the rest of his life didn’t assuage the gnawing humiliation as he opened his mouth and let Murphy inspect the inside to be certain he’d swallowed. As usual.

“Left cheek,” he ordered behind the flashlight. “Right cheek. Under your tongue. Top lip. Lower lip. All set, Gallagher.”

A check mark in the good column and then he was gone.

For the next twelve hours, Ian could do nearly anything he wanted, within reason obviously. He started by avoiding Mickey’s gaze as he traversed the few feet to his bunk, though he’d almost immediately get distracted when a tug on his jumpsuit or a foot to his knee had him stumbling into Mickey’s arms or his bed for a while instead. He reported to the infirmary at ten o’clock to assist the doctors with simpler aspects of prison healthcare and keep his EMT skills from getting rusty. Noon snuck up on him, and he met Mickey in the cafeteria for lunch. Ian made fun of him for reeking of laundry detergent. Mickey stole his slimy canned peaches in retaliation, pretending that he didn’t know Ian hated them anyway. They spent two hours apart with their respective groups of friends, or whatever passed for friends on the inside. (It amazed Ian day after day that anyone from his pre-arraignment time in jail wanted anything to do with him, but there were a couple guys who stuck by him because they liked him just as much sane as the opposite.) At three, he and Mickey made a contest of the shitty excuse for a gym, battling to see who could lift the most weights or do the most pull-ups or whatever their exercise of choice was. Five o’clock brought dinner, then they returned to their cell until it was time for his meds and lights out.

Every day went exactly the same as the one before it, and that was good. Ian had seen a few different shrinks at the clinic, all of whom had had the same nonchemical prescription: routine. Strict scheduling. Up at the same time, eat at the same time, meds at the same time, work at the same time, exercise at the same time, bed at the same time. It would keep him stable, they said. It would prevent his brain from flooding his system with more of one thing or another until he tipped over that invisible cliff into the madness lurking just underneath the surface of his skin, they told him. It wouldn’t make him sane forever or permanently delete whatever it was that sent him flying into an episode at a moment’s notice, but it would help.

At first, Ian believed prison would be good for him in that regard. Nothing unexpected ever happened. Even the occasional violent outburst in the cell block that left someone bleeding on the floor and Ian treating them until the doctors arrived was predictable. They erupted, yeah, but it was like clockwork. Just enough excitement to stave off the boredom without snapping his tenuous grip on what would always be a fragile, cautious reality.

If only he could convince everyone else of that.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Ian tersely asserted like he always did when Lip answered his phone with the usual question. It was hard not to let it bother him: he only got to make one call a week, so talking about his broken brain was a waste. “How is everybody? I miss you guys.”

There was a burst of air in his ear. “Soft bitch.”

“Fuck you.”

“Everyone’s good,” Lip finally answered, a smile in his voice that Ian wished he could see. “The house is feeling pretty empty these days, though.”

“Liam still staying at his friend’s place?”

“Uh, yeah. Debs is working on his list of demands. It’s kind of long, so it’ll probably be a while.”

Quirking an eyebrow, Ian asked, “Is she _actually_ working on it, or did she just say she is?”

“Who knows? It’s Debbie.”

That much, Ian understood without needing clarification. Whether it was a symptom of growing up or just part of being a Gallagher, it seemed that everyone was going their separate ways anymore. Where Debbie used to be the glue that held them together, sometimes against their will, even she wasn’t going to bat for family solidarity. The days of calling hospitals and checking morgues were long gone. She had a kid of her own, a job, and a home to run since Fiona wasn’t around to do it. Liam should have been part of that equation, but if she had to decide between fostering a racially diverse environment in their house and keeping Frank from tearing it apart to sell for scrap, Ian had a funny feeling he knew which was going to take precedence.

“You should tell her to ask V for help,” he recommended. “Maybe she’ll have some ideas.”

“Or just know what half that shit even means.”

“That too.”

If there was one thing Ian had grudgingly learned from therapy, it was that when you were out of your depth, there was nothing wrong with looking for some support to keep you from drowning. Liam’s desire to connect with the African American roots that none of them shared? They might as well have been in the middle of the ocean, barely treading water.

“Speaking of Debs,” Lip segued, “she and Carl are pretty much back to normal.”

“You mean, biting each other’s heads off but _not_ over a girl?”

“Yeah.”

Well, that was certainly progress. “What about Carl? He decide what he’s gonna do about school yet?”

There was a moment’s hesitation on the other end before Lip haltingly replied, “I don’t know. I think he’s still pretty broken up about West Point.”

_Ah. Right._

Ian was proud of Carl. Military school had been a big deal, a life-changing decision, and he’d come out of it a hell of a lot more put together than he was before. (Not that that was saying a great deal. Carl had always been a good kid deep down— _very_ deep down—but there was no denying that he was a bigger mess than all of them combined for a while there.) West Point and the army were like open, gaping wounds for Ian, however. No matter how much time passed, they never fully healed. They were easily overlooked when he was too busy attempting to stitch his own shit together and celebrating Carl’s success in what he hadn’t been able to accomplish due to his illness, and his happiness for his little brother wasn’t feigned in the slightest. In a way, it was actually kind of flattering that he was living out Ian’s dreams for him, or so it had seemed on the outside. Standing in prison with a line of inmates behind him, all waiting impatiently to use the phone, it was more difficult to ignore the bone-deep sting of regret and grief. It was nearly impossible not to feel like a complete failure in spite of what he’d accomplished since all his hopes and aspirations went up in manic flames. Once he got his head screwed on right again, Ian had looked into it to determine whether there was any chance of salvaging what he’d worked so hard for or if everything had been reduced to scorched earth. If he sought a waiver to enlist with bipolar disorder, he might have been approved. Since his history already included joining under a false identity, destroying government property, and going AWOL… It wasn’t worth printing out the form.

But fuck that. Ian wasn’t fragile. He wasn’t broken. What was done was done, and he’d acknowledged that what had happened to his future wasn’t his fault a long time ago. He’d just pulled the short straw and won the shitty genetic lottery. The rest of his siblings hadn’t fared much better, so it was no use feeling sorry for himself now. Propping Carl up was what mattered. His opportunities weren’t endless, but they weren’t limited by the constant, pervasive fear that he would fuck it all up by virtue of merely being himself either.

“There are other places he can go. I think there might be some old brochures in the attic with my stuff. He can dig them out if he wants,” Ian offered. He dragged the toe of his shoe along the edge of the wall to distract himself from the implications of keeping those things when he knew it was pointless.

Lip snorted, teasing, “You get rid of all the porn in there?”

“…On second thought, tell him to Google it.”

This time, his laughter was cut off by a loud, echoing _clang_ followed by Lip cursing under his breath.

“What are you doing?” Ian inquired with a frown.

It was always impressive how Lip managed to make rolling his eyes something you could actually _hear_. “Trying to put this rich asshole’s bike back together. I told him to stop with the street racing, but he just keeps doing it. Pretty soon, there won’t be enough left to work on.”

“Wouldn’t it be less expensive to buy a new bike than keep fixing this one?”

“That’s what I was thinking. But the money’s good, and Tami and I are gonna need it for the baby, so _he_ doesn’t need to know that, right?”

Typical Lip. Always scamming. Some things never changed, and it made Ian smile while simultaneously choosing his next words with care. His brother’s relationships had never been what Ian would call stable, not that he had room to talk, but his baby mama sounded like a particularly volatile character. It didn’t help that he hadn’t gotten a chance to meet her yet, so all Ian had was the snatches of information he could get out of Lip on their all too brief weekly calls.

“How, uh… How _is_ Tami?”

There was a grunt of exertion, the sound of metal on metal, and then Lip casually replied, “Oh, you know. Kind of back and forth. Some days, I’m pretty sure she hates my guts. Then we go look for baby furniture.”

“That’s good. I think.”

“Could be a lot worse,” he confirmed. “What about Mickey? You two kill each other yet?”

Barking a laugh, Ian sarcastically replied, “Yeah, he’s bleeding out on the floor of our cell right now.”

“My brother, the cold-blooded killer.”

He almost joked that he hadn’t gone _that_ insane yet but stopped himself before the words could leave his mouth. Reminding Lip about that would bring all those questions up to the surface again, and Ian wanted to enjoy the time he got with his family, such as it was.

“No, we’re good,” he said with an apologetic wave to the guy behind him where the latter was pointedly tapping his wrist and glaring. “Everything’s good. Well, as good as it gets in here, anyway.”

“And what about you?” Lip asked, suddenly tentative. So much for avoiding the subject.

“I already told you I’m fine.”

“Yeah, but, uh…you know. I worry about your dumb ass sometimes.”

Ian exhaled a bitter half-chuckle and murmured, “I know.”

“It’s a lot of stress.”

“What is? I do the same thing every day. It’s the shrink’s dream.”

“There’ve been a lot of changes, though,” Lip gently observed. “I mean, you just came down from being manic a few weeks ago, and a lot’s happened since then.”

“And now I’m back on my meds. Trust me, they make sure of it in here,” sighed Ian, not at all certain who he was trying to placate more.

As far as Lip was concerned, making light of the situation didn’t seem to do any good. It never did. Then again, that was no surprise: Lip had always watched over him, even before he got sick. Sometimes, he did more harm than good, but he tried. That was why, much as it frustrated Ian to no end, he couldn’t be too mad. They were brothers. It was their job to annoy and protect one another in equal measures.

Nevertheless, Ian couldn’t help but feel a surge of relief when the next person in line finally got fed up enough to exclaim, “Come the fuck on, asshole! Ain’t got all day here.”

That was crap since they did, in fact, have all day with nothing of any value to do. Ian thought better of correcting him, though.

“Hey, I gotta go,” he announced loudly for both that guy’s and Lip’s benefit. And his own, given that he didn’t relish the idea of getting stabbed for taking too long on a call.

“All right. Just, uh…watch yourself in there.”

“Will do. I’ll talk to you next week.”

“Yeah. Love you, man.”

Pursing his lips against a smile, Ian replied, “You too,” and hung up.

It didn’t bother him that the meathead who’d been waiting shoulder-checked him on his way past. He didn’t register the empty threats about what would happen next time he hogged the phone. That was all they were anyway—empty. The asshole was in here on a drug charge, not a violent crime. Even if he did have it in him, Ian was protected by Mickey’s reputation to a certain degree. The name _Milkovich_ meant something on this side of the electric fence, and Mickey had made it his mission to let everyone know that it extended to Ian prior to his arrival. So, he put it out of his mind and tossed Lip’s words around inside his head as he strode unhurriedly towards the cell block.

He hadn’t been wrong: things _had_ changed a lot lately, and _fast_. Ian had gone from being off his meds for a few months to swallowing them like candy at all the rigidly scheduled times. Where he’d been a paragon of gay rights activism, hoisted up on a pedestal that quickly transformed into his own petard, the people who had been supporting him all the while had written him off completely in the aftermath of the trial. Fiona nagging him about a plea bargain, Geneva insisting that admittance of his illness’s influence over his behavior would destroy all the good they had tried to do, Terry’s warnings about the mind-numbing tedium of prison life—there had been so many divergent messages zooming around his head at top speed that he was privately surprised it _hadn’t_ shattered his sanity again. Then he went to prison and Mickey was suddenly there and his family suddenly _wasn’t_ and Fiona wouldn’t be there when he got out just like she hadn’t been when he went in and his siblings were moving on with their lives without him while he waited for a weekly update that could never encompass everything and—

_Stop_ , Ian told himself with a firm shake of his head. Dwelling on it wasn’t going to help. That was asking for trouble. Yeah, things were changing. That was life. He couldn’t get worked up over it. It sucked, and it wasn’t fair, but he couldn’t. He had to stay calm, or else his meds weren’t going to do their job. Ian _needed_ them to do their job. He needed to follow his shrink’s advice. He needed to focus on his stability. He needed to solidify his routine. He needed to safeguard his sanity.

Stability. Routine. Sanity.

Stability. Routine. Sanity.

Stability.

Routine.

Sanity.

He fucking hated this.

Emptying his head was harder than usual, but Ian resentfully managed it anyway. He stood with his back pressed against the wall, posture carefully relaxed, and breathed deeply until he felt like it was safe to open his eyes and face the world. His mind attempted to rile him up again by hissing in his ear that he was throwing off his careful schedule, that Mickey was going to worry that something had happened to him if he didn’t get his ass back to the block soon, that everyone was going to know he was off his rocker if they didn’t already. Ian ignored it. He couldn’t trust his own mind. After all, it was sick.

Ian wasn’t running much later than he typically did on days when he used the phone. Mickey was sitting at a table with some other inmates, getting steamrolled in a game of dominoes if his obvious irritation was indicative. Ian’s small group of acquaintances called him over, and his smile fooled them into believing that everything was normal.

Everything _was_ normal. _Ian_ wasn’t. And that was okay. _Ian_ was okay.

Until he wasn’t.

The shift was gradual. A couple weeks went by. He spoke to Lip twice, each call slightly shorter than the last as he ran out of both things to say and the motivation with which to say them. The day of their third conversation, Ian was reluctant to pick up the phone at all much less make the long trek from his cell. By the time he took his place in line, his legs felt like he’d just run thirteen miles through the thick pools of shit that Fiona told them about when she’d worked for that sewage disposal company. He must have been overdoing it with the exercise lately, and the idea of standing there talking for even five minutes was painful to entertain. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to speak to Lip. He loved his brother, and that lifeline tying him to the outside world meant everything to him. How else would he find out whether Liam had come home yet or Carl chose a different career path or Debbie was still able to afford Franny’s daycare or Tami’s pregnancy was going well or Fiona had finally ended up in a place to call her own? Those calls were more than a few words exchanged over a remote connection. They were insurance that he would have a place with his family when he got out rather than returning home like a stranger.

But he was tired. He was… He was just really tired.

“There’s been a lot going on in the infirmary, that’s all,” he mumbled when Lip asked for the fifth time if he was doing okay. “Chester’s dying, so…”

That didn’t mean anything. Ian didn’t care about Chester. Or he did in moderation. It wasn’t enough to mire him in grief, though. He was a nice old man, but he’d been dying for a long time, so maybe it was better that he went ahead and got it over with. Then his age-addled brain wouldn’t have to do so much heavy lifting anymore.

Yeah. That actually sounded like it might be nice.

“You know, you could probably ask for some time off? See if they can give you something else for a while?” Lip suggested, though it was obvious that he didn’t believe Ian would act on his advice. And he was right.

“It’s fine. Think I just need to get some sleep.”

“Well, tell Mickey to stop keeping you up all night. That’s not gonna help.”

It was a joke, a pretty funny one since Ian and Mickey hadn’t slept together in a few days, and Ian chose not to set the record straight. Lip probably didn’t want the vivid details of his sex life, not that he’d ever been altogether eager to share them either. Besides, it would be awkward to explain over the phone even if he _could_ find the energy to round up the words. Too many eyes. Too many ears. Always watching. Always listening. _Always_.

“Hey, you okay?”

Ian blinked. He was in their cell. He was sitting on Mickey’s bunk. The lights were out. His boxers were around his ankles. Mickey was on his knees in front of him. His eyebrows were furrowed. He looked worried. Mickey shouldn’t look worried. That wasn’t good.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay,” Ian reassured him in a voice that sounded further away than the confines of their cell allowed.

“Really?” Mickey skeptically raised his eyebrows, gesturing at the obvious problem. “’Cause it sure as hell don’t seem like it.”

Oh. That _really_ wasn’t good.

Hastily yanking his underwear back on in abject humiliation that should have burned more sharply than it did, Ian sighed, “Shit, sorry.”

“It’s cool if you ain’t in the mood,” Mickey brushed his apology off more easily than Ian distantly thought _he_ would be able to if it were Mickey who hadn’t physically responded despite his ministrations.

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Ian _wasn’t_ in the mood. He hadn’t been for days, which was why they hadn’t done more than make out here and there. Even that was increasingly becoming a chore. If he didn’t pull himself together, Mickey wasn’t going to keep being so nice about it, and rightfully so. There were plenty of other guys in here, all of them looking to get off with no strings or obligations. Ian needed to put out. He didn’t want Mickey to find someone else, but he would when he inevitably realized that Ian couldn’t satisfy his needs.

“ _Ian_.”

He was on his feet. He’d been pacing, running his fingers through his hair, muttering under his breath about how sorry he was. He didn’t really remember standing up.

Mickey’s hand was on his cheek. He didn’t remember how that had happened either.

He was embarrassing himself. In front of _Mickey_.

“Sorry,” Ian whispered, leaning into the steady pressure of Mickey’s palm and closing his eyes. If he didn’t look, then he wouldn’t have to see the wheels turning. He wouldn’t have to watch Mickey’s expression darken when he started asking the questions Ian hated hearing and never grew accustomed to no matter how many times they were thrown in his direction.

_Do you feel manic?_

_Do you feel depressed?_

_Do you think your meds are out of balance?_

_Do you need the shrink?_

He didn’t. He didn’t. He didn’t. And he didn’t.

“I’m just tired,” Ian said. It hurt almost as much as Mickey getting married and going to the baptism and being locked up and crossing the border that he didn’t look like he bought that for a second.

“Okay,” he answered anyway. His thumb soothed away the tension in Ian’s forehead for a minute, then he was guiding him towards their bunks. “Let’s get some sleep, Gallagher.”

He needed it.

He _wanted_ it.

He couldn’t find it.

Mickey collapsed onto his own mattress, and Ian lay awake staring at the ceiling, his mind a gaping void. Mickey’s breathing evened out, and Ian lay awake staring at the ceiling, his mind a gaping void. Telltale moans and groans drifted in through the vent that connected their cell to their neighbors’, and Ian lay awake staring at the ceiling, his mind a gaping void. Guards strolled by to peer in at them, and Ian lay awake staring at the ceiling, his mind a gaping void. The tiny window turned grey, and Ian lay awake staring at the ceiling, his mind a gaping void.

The lights turned on. It was seven o’clock.

Ian mechanically dropped to the floor and lowered himself into Mickey’s bunk to wrap around him from behind. He said, “I got a good night’s sleep.” He said, “Thanks for not making last night even more embarrassing.” He said, “I owe you something fun.” He said, “I’ll make it up to you.” All the right lines. All the appropriate, preprogrammed assurances. Mickey said something too, but it was far away. Everything was far away.

The toilet was far away, but he used it.

The toothpaste was far away, but he brushed with it.

The door was far away, but he took his meds and let Officer Murphy examine him through it.

The cafeteria was _so_ far away, but he got there on time.

See, Mickey? He was fine. He thought he even smiled.

It was automatic, getting through the day, and that was how he knew he was all right. After breakfast, Ian kissed Mickey for a while. They didn’t have sex—Mickey didn’t even attempt to move in that direction—and that was okay. His meds kept him from being in the mood. The packets of mayonnaise that had become their only recourse after he got told off for sneaking lube out of the infirmary kept him from being in the mood. Missing home and his family kept him from being in the mood. Little things. Stupid shit. Passing problems. It wasn’t that he didn’t _want_ to. That would be weird, and Ian was fine. Once he got some sleep, he’d be back to normal and those things wouldn’t bother him so much. Just a couple more days. That was all he needed.

At ten, Ian went to work. He took blood pressure and glucose levels. He recorded vitals. He joked robotically with the patients. The doctors said he was doing a great job and that they were glad to have an inmate who knew his shit. It was a nice compliment. Once he got some sleep, he’d be back to normal and would appreciate it.

At noon, Ian trudged to lunch. Mickey pretended not to watch him, but he was watching him. He didn’t steal Ian’s peaches. Ian didn’t give him a reason to.

At one, Ian took a nap. It wasn’t on his schedule. Mickey made him do it anyway. He slept. Maybe.

At three, Ian didn’t work out. Mickey didn’t come to wake him up. He’d probably found someone else to compete with. There was no shortage of candidates. Ian rolled onto his side to face the wall. He slept. Maybe.

At five, Ian stumbled down to dinner. He wasn’t really hungry, but Mickey said he couldn’t take his meds on an empty stomach. He said he didn’t want the cell stinking of diarrhea for the next week. He was kidding. He didn’t look like he was kidding, though. Ian ate. He couldn’t taste it.

At eight-thirty, Ian took his meds and proved it. He wasn’t sure what he’d been doing since they got back to their cell. He wasn’t sure _when_ they’d gotten back to their cell.

At nine, Ian listened while Mickey informed him, “You keep telling me that, but you’re not.” He was helping Ian out of his jumpsuit. That was strange. Ian didn’t need help getting undressed. He wasn’t a toddler.

“Never said you were, tough guy.”

Oh. He must have said that out loud.

“Yeah,” Mickey chuckled. “You did.”

Ian may have put a few more of his thoughts into words, but he couldn’t remember which ones. Next thing he knew, he was in his bunk with Mickey standing beside him, leaning against the metal frame with his narrowed eyes darting back and forth between Ian’s. He seemed to be waiting for something. How funny. It used to be Ian waiting for Mickey all the time. It used to be a lot of things that didn’t exist anymore. 

“You hear me?” he was saying. When Ian nodded dumbly out of instinct rather than honesty, he shot him his most unimpressed look and demanded, “What’d I say?”

He didn’t know. Lightly racking his brains didn’t provide any results, and Ian quickly gave that up for a lost cause. Either Mickey was aware that he was struggling, or he’d accidentally let that slip out of his mouth too. Or both. It might have been both. Regardless, his eyebrows said he wasn’t happy about it.

Mickey was touching his face again. He was maneuvering it on the pillow so that Ian had no choice but to look at him. It was gentle. It felt nice.

Ian wanted him to stop.

Those words didn’t make it into existence. If they had, Mickey would have listened. Instead, his fingers tenderly caressed Ian’s temple as though that would coax the crazy out. Ian didn’t think he was crazy, but Mickey apparently did.

“I said, you’re getting your ass to the shrink tomorrow if this shit doesn’t let up. Got it?”

“I don’t need a shrink.”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m fine.”

“Sure you are, Gallagher,” Mickey scoffed. It irritated him. It infuriated him.

“Go away.”

Mickey’s hand was gone. Mickey’s face was gone. Ian was staring at the wall where the cinder blocks gave way to the metal border around the window. It was quiet, inside and out. Mostly quiet. There was a hole. The wind was blowing through it, or maybe that was Mickey breathing. It whistled. It was cold. Ian pulled the sheet up to his chin and shivered, willing it to go away and somehow knowing that it wouldn’t. It never did. It was always there. The trash bag and duct tape he used to hide it had peeled aside, that was all. But it was always there, waiting to be let out.

Like now.

“Ian? Come on, man. You gotta get up.”

When had the sky brightened to blue? When had the lights come on?

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Just another day in prison. Just another day of letting sane, productive people pay taxes for his food and his clothes and his toilet paper. Just another day of leeching off the system like Frank.

And another day of Mickey hovering over him like a goddamn nurse.

“Hey, you said you were fine last night, so get the fuck up. I ain’t missing count ‘cause of your ass.”

Taunting. Mickey was taunting him. Mickey was taunting him to cover up how worried he was that he was right, that Ian was slowly slipping through the cracks in the floorboards of his mind. It would have made him sick to his stomach if he weren’t still too cold to feel his stomach.

“Then go.”

“And take the blame when you don’t show your fucking face? No way, bitch. Get up.”

Ian couldn’t see him, but he could hear Mickey’s desperation for him to just be _normal_. It screamed at Ian when Mickey wouldn’t. It pounded its fists on Ian’s shoulders and shook him roughly when he didn’t respond. It dug into his back like a knife, carving _ASSHOLE_ from his waist to his neck and his spine underlining it with fancy, aching vertebrae.

Mickey was hurting him. _He_ was hurting Mickey.

_Why can’t you just be_ normal _?!_

“Leave me alone.”

Then at least one of them wouldn’t have to be in pain anymore. One of them could escape.

“Look, Ian—"

_Stop._

“—if you don’t get outta bed—”

_Please, just go away._

“—I’m calling for that fucking shri—”

“You don’t have to worry about me every fucking minute, _Jesus_!”

Echo. Echo. Echo.

Bouncing off the bare walls. The metal sink. The hole beneath the floorboards where the madness slept. Tossed. Turned. Stirred. Down, down, down—echo, echo, echo.

Pause.

Knock. Knock.

“Yo!”

Pause.

Clang. Bang.

“What’s the problem, Milkovich?”

“Need a doctor in here. Gallagher’s sick.”

Pause.

Step. Step.

Clang. Bang.

Hand. Warm hand. Familiar hand. On his back. In his hair. Gently massaging his neck and making him feel worse and worse.

“Hang in there, man. We’ll get you fixed up.”

Ian didn’t answer, closing his eyes and ignoring the pool forming in the hollow on the side of his nose. There was no fixing him. Mickey _knew_ there was no fixing him.

If he held still long enough, maybe Mickey would give up. If he held still long enough, maybe Mickey wouldn’t be able to see him anymore, wouldn’t have to look at his pathetic face. No one would. Nobody would see that there was no fixing him because there would be no him to fix. It was like what Debbie and Carl had insisted when they were younger: if you didn’t move, then you were invisible. No one would notice that you were letting Frank in at night when he was too plastered to find his key or dissecting the rats in their basement to find out what the poison did to their insides. Ian missed when they were little. They’d looked up to him then. Now, they simply looked at him like they were waiting for him to shatter into a thousand pieces that no one would ever be able to tape or glue or staple or nail or screw or weld together again.

Fix.

They couldn’t.

So, he wouldn’t make them watch his rapid spiral into the abyss where the cold air blew in. He’d be still. He’d be quiet. Nobody would find him here.

A day passed.

Two days.

Five days.

Five months.

Five years.

Ten years.

Oh, he should’ve been out by now. He’d missed it. He’d stayed so still that they’d forgotten about him and he had grown into the wall of the cell like a vine, latching onto the infrastructure because it took no energy and he had none to spare and one day this place would rot and decay and collapse and that would be fine since maybe then he’d be happy but probably not because nobody would remember him but that was better anyway as they wouldn’t have to take care of him like they always did and they doubtless loved that he was in prison so they didn’t have to talk him off ledges or analyze his every move or determine if he was just sleepy or the world was swallowing him while he was too tired to claw his way out of the sinkhole slowly opening up beneath him, so slowly, so _damn slowly_ —

“Mr. Gallagher.”

Shit. He’d moved. He must have. Someone had brought in a gardener to chop off the leafy limbs that had held him down on earth. Now, he was floating up into the atmosphere, through the heat and into the icy chill of empty space. It wasn’t as scary as he’d thought it would be. In fact, Ian didn’t feel anything at all.

There was a man watching him closely, clipboard in hand and a file thicker than any of Ian’s prison-provided books on his lap where he was sitting on a chair in the center of the cell. He had white hair and a salt-and-pepper beard. He looked like the kind of guy who should have glasses, but he didn’t. He appeared to see Ian just fine. He appeared to see _through_ Ian just fine. It should have felt uncomfortable. Instead, Ian didn’t feel anything at all.

“I need you to answer a few questions for me,” the man continued in a slow, steady monotone. The doctor. He was a doctor. A head doctor. Ian distantly remembered meeting him when he’d first arrived. They’d set up a plan for his medication. They’d discussed how to keep himself healthy while he was in prison. Perfunctory, but not a bad guy.

Ian had met worse.

“These questions are meant to gauge your current mental and emotional state so that we can more accurately adjust your medication. Simple yes or no answers will suffice.”

Good. Anything more than that exhausted him just thinking about it.

“Have you experienced a major depressive episode within the last year?”

That was an easy one: “No.”

“Have you experienced a major manic episode within the last year?”

Ian considered pointing out that he should already know that that was the case since it was literally what had landed him here in the first place, but that was too many words. He settled for, “Yes.”

“In the last week, have you experienced a decrease of interest in activities you normally enjoy?”

“Yes,” Ian muttered. Fuck, he was tired already.

“Would you classify that decrease as significant?”

“Yes.”

What could possibly be _enjoyable_? Ian couldn’t think of anything, though he admittedly didn’t try very hard. That was asking a lot.

“Have you experienced feelings of sadness or numbness?”

“Yes.”

“Have you experienced what you would consider to be extreme levels of fatigue or lethargy?”

This was exhausting. Where was Mickey? He knew the answers to these questions.

“Yes.”

“Have you experienced feelings of worthlessness or guilt beyond what you typically would?”

Because he was in prison. So, he was supposed to feel guilty. But how guilty was _typical_ when you started a cult, blew up a van, scared the shit out of your family, and made your boyfriend turn himself in to the Feds for you?

“I don’t know.”

The doctor—Schein, that was his name—wrote something in the margins on his clipboard and then proceeded, “Do you find yourself unable to or having difficulty concentrating, making decisions, or remembering things?”

“Maybe,” Ian evaded testily. If he _were_ having trouble remember things, it wasn’t like he’d know.

“Have you been experiencing any abnormal and sudden physical pain?”

Besides the one in his ass from all these questions?

“Yes.”

“Have you noticed a sudden irregularity in your sleep patterns?”

“Yes.”

“Would you classify that irregularity as extreme?”

Ian shrugged. He wanted to just lay down in Mickey’s bunk—how did he end up sitting on Mickey’s bed?—and find out.

Dr. Schein seemed to realize that he was bleeding Ian dry, because he hurried through the last few questions. Appetite changes? Yes. Crying for no apparent reason? Yes. Thoughts of death or suicide? Yes, if hoping the entire building would one day fall on top of him or being jealous of Chester counted.

“Well, Mr. Gallagher, it should come as no surprise to you that you’re experiencing a depressive episode,” Dr. Schein notified him once he was done tallying the check marks or whatever it was that that form was meant to do.

Medical jargon. It was bullshit. Ian was crazy. That was what the doctor was telling him: _you’re crazy_. He just had to make it sound nicer in case Ian got offended and started making waves. _Crazy_ wasn’t a very nice word. _Insane_ wasn’t either.

Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he was fleetingly aware that he should be upset. Weeks without an episode, weeks of convincing himself that he was back to normal, and then _bam_. The crazy train ran him over again.

Instead, Ian didn’t feel anything at all.

“—arily increase your dosage of lithium by half,” he was saying when Ian tuned in to the conversation again. “We’ll wait a few days for the results and readjust from there. If it becomes necessary, we’ll reevaluate your dosage of Olanzapine to accommodate and avoid the risk of potentially triggering a manic episode. Mr. Gallagher, do you have any questions?”

Questions? Did he have questions?

Yes, he did. They were on the tip of his tongue even though he told the doctor, “No.” They swirled around inside his head, making him dizzy as he threw back a different number of pills than usual. They etched themselves into the wall so he’d never forget them.

Why were they wasting their time on him?

Why were they practically throwing away the meds?

Did they really think he was worth the money they were dumping into treating him?

They must have. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have bothered.

Wow. Ian had fooled them. They really didn’t know, not even in prison where it really should have been expected.

He was a phony, a fake who had convinced everyone he was a functioning person and then left them cleaning up the mess when he remembered that he wasn’t—that he wasn’t even _human_. He was a slug. Not a person. A useless slug. A trail of slime followed everywhere he went, more trouble to mop up than he could ever hope to be worth. Some people knew it already. They’d sniffed out his secret. Everyone at his job had figured it out even though they’d been required by law to give him a shot anyway. Trevor had figured it out, and he’d been smart enough to run away, dodging a bullet in the process. Maybe that was the reason Caleb had cheated on him and then attempted to convince him that it wasn’t cheating at all: he, too, had figured it out but didn’t want to make Ian feel bad about it. A slug couldn’t help being a slug, after all. It couldn’t just go buy a shell in a manic spending fit and turn itself into a snail. Snails weren’t worth much either, but at least some people got a meal out of them. Not like slugs.

Ian had only been in prison for a few weeks, but the other inmates had figured it out too. They all knew. He could tell. He knew they watched him from beyond the door. He knew they scrutinized his every move at meals and at work and in the limited yard time they got on nice days. He knew they walked by and sneered at him now, whispering behind his back, “There’s Gallagher, the pathetic queer who tried to make everyone think he could _be_ somebody.”

He couldn’t. And the more he tried to fool everyone, the more he’d inexorably disappoint them. He might even disappoint _them_ more than himself. He was a professional diver, climbing the highest rungs and leaping from the tallest diving board to thunderous applause only to belly flop at the bottom.

From officer to half-naked dancer.

From caretaker to eternal patient.

From EMT to cult leader.

From the responsible brother to the total fuck-up.

From sane to batshit crazy.

Splash.

Prison might just be where he belonged. There was nothing left to lose in here when he was fusing to his bunk, fading in and out of existence like stations on Kev’s ancient radio at the Alibi, invisible and then not and then invisible again. Why would he ever want to leave this place and inflict himself on anyone else? Everything that was important to him went away. Everybody left because he wasn’t enough to make them stay.

Fiona left. She’d moved into her apartment complex. She’d told them not to use her as their emergency contact anymore. She’d been distancing herself from the rest of the family for a while, and it was all Ian’s fault. Taking care of them was normal for Fiona, a routine she had cultivated before he was old enough to remember whether there had ever been anything different. That was normal, and she loved it as much as she despised it because it made her feel wanted and important. But he was positive that his damaged brain was the straw that broke the camel’s back for her. While his siblings were growing up and finally able to take care of themselves for the most part, Ian was a burden. He wasn’t the brother she didn’t have to worry about anymore, and she’d run away to live her own life free of his stench. Honestly, he couldn’t blame her.

Mickey left. He’d changed when Ian got sick, losing that edge that Ian would grasp until he bled and beg for more. He’d stopped acting like the guy Ian had fallen in love with, and he was positive that if he’d let things continue, it wouldn’t have been long before he destroyed Mickey completely. That was what Ian did. He destroyed things. He destroyed people. As far back as visiting Frank’s brother and watching his wife gradually come undone the more she realized something wasn’t right about Lip and him showing up seemingly at random, Ian had destroyed people. Mickey had been right to leave for Mexico without him. He should have stayed there instead of tying a rope around Ian’s ankle so he could get dragged into the black hole too. It was dark in here. Mickey shouldn’t be in the dark. He’d had enough of that to last a lifetime without Ian drowning him in it as well.

Monica left. She always left. Nothing Ian did could make her stay, no matter how hard he tried. He wasn’t enough. She’d loved him, yet he wasn’t enough to give her a reason not to go. Even when she _was_ there, she _wasn’t_. The others hated her for it, but Ian didn’t. That meant it was on him to tie her down, to make her put the same roots into the house that gradually latched onto the walls of his prison cell. That meant he was the only one who could convince her not to leave. But he wasn’t enough. He was a slug. She had probably seen him squirming all over the floor and didn’t want to deal with that mess. Who would?

Frank left. It hadn’t hurt in a long time, but it used to. Ian couldn’t stack up against a bottle of Old Style. If he’d kept his mouth shut more, maybe he could have stood a chance someday. Maybe Frank would have taken him places like Liam or Debbie or Carl. Maybe he’d have taken an interest in his future the way he had with Lip when he’d graduated. Maybe he would have shown Ian how to live when all he wanted was to sink into the concrete floor and cease to exist as more than a molecule like Fiona said he’d done with her before she left. Bloody noses and bruises where the refrigerator wasn’t kind to his back. Pseudo advice in a gay club where he was pretending for the sake of money. That was what Frank gave him before he left. Before Ian drove him out by complaining about shirts and beer. Why wouldn’t he go? Ian wasn’t even his kid. Ian wasn’t anybody’s kid anymore.

He felt like one. Curled up tight beneath the thin sheet he’d been provided—something else that wasn’t _his_ , that would one day be given back—Ian didn’t feel like an adult. In bed or upright while a shrink psychoanalyzed him and prescribed meds that would never heal what was wrong, he didn’t even feel like a person.

He was a slug, exhausted and waiting for somebody to step on him so he’d be put out of his misery at last. Nobody else would have to leave. Nobody else would have to deal with him. He’d be gone.

Maybe then he’d be human again. Maybe then he’d be normal.

But.

But—

But…normal was subjective, wasn’t it? Insanity was normal, at least to Ian. When he was in the throes of it, it was as though he’d never known anything else. When he wasn’t, it was as though he never would again.

For three days, normal was a bed. Normal was alone. Normal was a sheet pulled over his head to block out the sunlight that threatened to burn him alive. Normal was listening to Mickey come and go, tensing when it seemed like he might say something, and a tear dripping down into his pillow when he didn’t even though that was precisely how Ian wanted it. Normal was feeling like he’d never get up again and that maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

For two days after that, normal was still a bed. Normal was mostly alone but occasionally rolling onto his other side to watch Mickey do his own normal things: dressing, brushing his teeth, playing solitaire rather than venturing out of their cell for something more interesting. Normal was guilt at making him feel like he needed to isolate himself the way Ian had and wordlessly eating another bite or two of the meals that the COs brought to him as repayment.

For a week after that, normal was intense mood swings that sapped any energy Ian regained and left him right back in bed. Normal was eating separately so that he didn’t fly off the handle rather than because he couldn’t get up. Normal was sometimes crawling into Mickey’s bunk and holding onto him as though Ian could protect him from himself, sometimes shifting as close to the wall as he could so that Mickey would really have to work at it if he wanted to touch him. Normal was vacillating between wanting his phone calls back and not wanting to disappoint his family when his normal didn’t align with theirs.

And eventually, when two weeks bled into three, normal was every day going exactly the same as the one before it. Normal was lights on at seven. Breakfast at eight. Pills at eight-thirty. Infirmary at ten. Lunch at noon. Socializing at one. Working out at three. Dinner at five. Pills at eight-thirty. Bed at nine. Normal was calling home and _not_ being called out for not calling because Mickey had done it for him. Three times. Normal was finally making it up to him, better late than never.

The yawning hole got tired, just like he did. It buried itself beneath those floorboards to sleep. Someday, it would wake up again. Someday, it would take over and send Ian to sleep instead. Normal would change. Normal always changed.

Normal was enjoying normal while he could. No one else was required to live with that, nor would he want them to. But Ian figured he could find a way.

**Author's Note:**

> This…wasn’t a story I originally planned to write. Given that it wouldn’t get out of my head, it came to fruition regardless. In addition, while I have researched depression in people with bipolar disorder to better understand and write from that perspective, I recognize that I unintentionally may not have reflected it entirely accurately as it is not something I’ve experienced myself. Constructive criticism in that regard is very much welcome. Thank you so much for reading. 
> 
> For more on Shameless, my writing, and assorted fandom madness, I'm on [Tumblr](https://pathoftheranger.tumblr.com/)!


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